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I have always preached about finding balance in life. Balance between work and family. Balance between time in the gym (or back yard) and time relaxing. Balance between fitness and sleep. Balance between a healthy diet and some fun drinking beer and eating cookies. You get the point.

This spring I took my advice to heart.  I had been working out my 4 days a week as I have been for years now, not stressing if I missed one here and there.  However, I had not been that stressed over my diet.  A little beer here, a little pizza there, some donuts and cookies were fine too.

Oops! 

Ok, I wasn’t as bad as this guy, but I am just about as pale, so that was where I was heading.  Look, I knew I wasn’t the trimmest I’ve ever been, but I was just balancing things out. I worked hard in January to get in great shape, so a few months of taking it easy is all part of the cycle.  I can’t be 100% all the time for goodness sakes.

Then after a physical it hit me.  I usually don’t weight myself, but I figured I had added 10 pounds, all of which tend to go to my gut like this fine looking guy in the photo. How could this happen?  I thought about the likely culprits.

Let’s see.

I did start drinking more home brews from my brother-in-law. Excellent, excellent beer, but higher in calories. I did munch on my kids snacks here and there  (using the word “balance” as an excuse).  I would have a pop in the late afternoon at work most days, when I usually didn’t do that. My one coworker swore these carmel apple suckers were low calorie, but I now know that was bunk.

And the final culprit…well my wife likes to refer to it by saying that I enjoyed playing the “let’s see what tastes good dipped in peanut butter” game. It ranged from carrots to cookies to several dips of granola bars. In fact, the only way this spring I would eat a granola bar was when each bite had a mouth full of peanut butter as well. But hey it was Krema all natural peanut butter. I mean, the only ingredient is peanuts!  Well, remember peanuts might be “good” fat, but I apparently wasn’t lacking in mydaily fat intake.

Two weeks later and I have lost most of my 10 pounds by having literally no snacks whatsoever (boring). No more home brews for now, but a little wine or a Sunset Wheat isn’t killing me.  I made sure to get my 4 workouts in and if more than 1 is less than intense I even add a 5th for the week.

Please learn from my mistakes. Life still is about balance, but don’t let the scale tip too far the other way. It is a lot easier to maintain your weight than to have to lose it all over again!